The further and continuing adventures of the girl who sat in the back of your homeroom, reading and daydreaming.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Bloody Ferguson

Unless you totally ignore the news, you already know that two police officers were shot and injured in Ferguson, MO around midnight last night.

It was an all-too-familiar scene in the crappy little hamlet, protesters and police faced off at the police station. The number of protesters was up a bit, though down from earlier yesterday, presumably in reaction to the announcement that the police chief would be resigning in a week. ...And then someone well behind the row of protesters took shots at the police, striking two. No one has reported seeing the shooter, which strikes me as likely: the officers had their attention on closer troubles and the opposite side wasn't looking in that direction.

Yes, nothing improves a situation quite like shooting policemen, right? --It's really difficult to see how anyone local (and of at least moderate sanity) had anything to gain. Indeed, recent events were favoring the protestors -- a DOJ report critical of the way law enforcement and courts operate in Ferguson, MO, followed by a spate of firings and resignations among them officers, the police chief, a judge and the city manager.

Every time there's even a hint of some resolution -- unsatisfactory but possibly sufficient, which is about as much as anyone can home for in a mess as spawling as Ferguson, Missouri -- more idiotic crap happens.

I'm starting to favor a Solomonic solution. Take a look at the map: Ferguson is embedded in the greater St. Louis metroplex. Carve it up. Hand it off in chunks to the surrounding towns. If Ferguson's got such an outstandingly bad culture, replace it. Surrounding towns aren't bleeding and burning at a rate that makes headlines; they must be doing something that if not right, is at least less wrong than the established habits of the government and people of Ferguson, MO. Borders and town names are man-made artifacts, just labels and lines on a map. Redraw 'em. Rub out the mess. Ferguson delenda est.

If that doesn't work, there's always what the Romans did to Carthage. --And heck, this is the 21st Century: give everyone two months to move out before knocking down all the buildings, uprooting all the plants, and sowing the ground with salt as a warning to all who pass: Don't be jerks. They won't pay the lesson any heed.

What makes anyone think that the surrounding towns are any better or worse than Ferguson? No one heard of Ferguson until after that poor, misunderstood, gentle giant decided to strong-arm a box of Swisher Sweets from the local bodega and reach into a police car to beat on the policeman.

Ferguson has its problems. Including a $3 Million revenue generating paramilitary organization dressed in blue. If you do the math, that is $25 per hour that every policeman including the Chief and all the supervisors need to make to cover their share of the revenue ($3M, 58 Police, 2000 hrs per year). That requires shaking down a lot of citizens. The Sheriff of Nottingham would be envious of the "revenue stream."

The other towns are in the same budget bind, they just haven't met their gentle giant yet.

The Carthage metaphor isn't apt, unless you also include a genocide component that is unlikely to occur - - and let me forestall Tam at the outset by saying that I'm not advocating for any such genocide component.

A more apt metaphor would be what remained of the Confederacy in Georgia and the Carolinas after Sherman practiced scorched-earth tactics there: the reduced populace took decades to recover from the destruction, but were not extinguished as a people as the Carthaginians were.

Let's give the officers on the scene a little credit: they didn't start shooting back at a target they couldn't see or even guess the location of. After seeing two of their own go down, I bet they all had itchy fingers.

Saint Louis county is pretty notorious for these speed trap communities. In any case, Ferguson was no better or no worse than their neighboring cities. The problem is that law enforcement suffers when cities become fixated on revenue.

While Michael Brown was no "gentle giant", up until he assaulted Officer Wilson, he had not done anything which would justify the use of deadly force.

To be sure, Michael Brown's actions brought about his own demise but Officer Wilson's poor decisions created the situation where deadly force became necessary.

Much as I hate Monday morning quarterbacking, the plain fact is that Michael Brown didn't need to die that day had Officer Wilson done his job.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I will observe that, way back when before the dawn of time, when I was a deputy assigned to the Booking and Identification Unit, they taught us jackbooted-thugs-in-training that there is always one gun in any encounter you have - the one on your hip. They also taught us that, "...It's only YOUR gun until someone tries to take it away from you. Then, it belongs to whoever can hang onto it long enough to pull the trigger..."

It must be nice to be an American Ninja Warrior (tm) who can defeat any and all attempts to disarm and murder you, but, for the rest of us mere mortals who only get about two or three weeks worth of "Defensive Tactics" and "Weapons Retention" at our Police Academies, Michael Brown's statements and actions, as testified to by multiple witnesses (whose testimony was corroborated by the forensic evidence, viz the co-conspirator who changed his story every time he was interviewed), showed that Mr. Brown attempted to take away Ofc. Wilson's sidearm.

That evinces what the law calls "Murderous Intent". Once you have established Murderous Intent, the threshold for using Deadly Force to repel the assailant's attack becomes much lower. Do you seriously doubt that Mr. Brown would not have disarmed and murdered Ofc. Wilson, had he been allowed to close with and engage the officer hand-to-hand, given the height and weight advantage Mr. Wilson enjoyed?

[sarcasm] But, whatthehey - my having been shackled to the gearbox of the county machine surely means that, no matter how fairly and honestly I tried to conduct myself with the public during my tenure, SURELY, I must be just another jackbooted thug for daring to suggest that Officer Darren Wilson conducted himself rightly when he met Mister Michael Brown on that horrible day... [/sarcasm]

Sir Robert Peel, when arguing with the British Parliament over the creation of the London Met, declared that "...The Police are the Public and the Public are the Police - the Police being only those members of the Public who are paid to give their full-time attention to those duties which are incumbent upon EVERY citizen (emphasis added) in the interest of community safety and survival..." If Coppers, Deputies, and Troopers aren't filling your itch, would you guys care to step up, pin on some tin, and show everybody how wrong we are (on the whole, given that the forensics alone destroys the narrative you espouse on this particular event)?

In conclusion: Ms. Roberta, I apologize for barging into your weblog commentary to engage in an argument, but I plead necessity - there were some folks who were painting me and my colleagues with a rather tarry brush, and I could not resist the impulse to try to rebut. Do with this post what you will...

Something ain't quite right in that neck of the woods, for sure. I just read that there are over 16K arrest warrants on record for the 21K residents of Ferguson. Scary, whether it's because there are a lot of bad people, or a lot of bad policing...

"I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions."